6. Kyle
CHAPTER 6
KYLE
B ecause my life wasn’t already being catapulted into previously uncharted realms of fucking weird , I found myself sitting across from Everett at Waffles? for the second time in twenty-four hours.
At least this time I’d arrived first, so I was sitting with my back to the wall. I didn’t need the chaos and randomness of this bizarre place sneaking up on me from behind.
On the other hand, facing the whole place was kind of distracting. It was already a challenge, listening to what Everett was saying—between how attractive he was and how much he ping-ponged between thoughts, my synapses were sizzling like the deep fryer in the diner’s kitchen. But behind him, it was like a Renaissance painting of WTF.
Three tables away from us, there was an animated discussion going on between two agitated men and one pissed-off women that seemed to center around a baby carrier on the bench beside the woman. At the long counter, a man dressed in business casual had been going on and on for like twenty minutes about multiple conspiracy theories. Every time I zeroed in on him, he’d jumped the rails to another conspiracy. Or maybe they were all connected somehow? I wasn’t quite sure how eight-to-ten foot shadow aliens invading a Florida mall related to the Hollywood elite guzzling adrenochrome. Or how all of that was at the core of why the Ukrainian government was behind MI6 paying North Korean spies to blackmail a local cop into not noticing the KGB operative who’d been brainwashed into shooting at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania while some kid took the fall for it. But maybe I just hadn’t spent enough time on Reddit lately. The waitress listening to the guy’s monologue looked like she wanted to bludgeon him with the coffeepot she’d been holding the whole time.
In the kitchen, something had again caught on fire, and someone was again being blamed for improperly trying to put it out. I was near an emergency exit, right? Because I was going to need it.
And of course, the corner booth was occupied with Goth kids drinking coffee and scowling. They weren’t the same kids as last night, either. Same aesthetic. Same booth. Different kids. Friends of the others? A rival clique? Were Goth gangs a thing? I felt like that would be an interesting turf war, and the gang signs would be?—
“Kyle?”
I shook myself and refocused on Everett. He studied me across the table, head tilted and eyebrows up. Oh. Fuck. Had I spaced out? Probably. I was running on like fourteen minutes of sleep, so my attention span wasn’t great.
Clearing my throat, I sat up. “Sorry. Sorry. Just…” I gave my head another shake. “Tired. What were you saying?”
He laughed softly. Not like he was making fun of me; more like he understood what it was like, getting so easily distracted.
He took a quick sip of coffee. “Like I was saying, I think the girlfriend—or the baby mama, I guess? I don’t think they’re together anymore—might be a good source. We should talk to her.” He furrowed his brow, and his earnestness was almost annoyingly cute. “Are we allowed to do that? I don’t know the first thing about investigating things like this.”
“I do.” I reached for my coffee cup. Still empty, just like it was a few minutes ago. And it would stay that way until QAnon McMulder stopped bending our poor waitress’s ear. Ugh. I pushed the empty cup toward the edge of the table, hoping to signal to her that it needed a refill so she could use that to escape her conversation. To Everett, I said, “We can talk to anyone we want.”
“But what if they say something incriminating?” He wrung his hands above the plate where his mac and cheese bites had been. “Don’t we have to like, read them their rights?”
I couldn’t help smiling. Everett wasn’t stupid. He just hadn’t been immersed in law enforcement his entire life, and like most people who didn’t come from a family full of cops, got most of his information from TV. And I liked that he was erring on the side of caution.
“We’re not arresting or detaining anyone,” I said. “We’re just having a conversation. If she’s willing to talk to us.”
Everett’s eyebrow rose. “But what if she says something important? Or like, incriminating?”
I shrugged. “Then we pass it on to the cops and let them deal with it.” I paused. “My dad doesn’t think there’s anything here—I tried to talk him into investigating, but…” I shook my head again. “If I come to him with an actual lead, though, he’ll look into it.”
“Okay. That’s?—”
“I am so sorry.” Our waitress appeared beside us, coffeepot in hand. She wore an expression that said she was ready to burn this whole place down and piss on the ashes. Still she managed to smile and sound… not cheerful, but not unfriendly. “I didn’t mean to leave you boys hanging. Can I refill that?”
“Please.” I smiled up at her. “Thanks. And don’t worry about it—sounded like you were, uh…” He tilted his head toward Mr. Tinfoil Hat, who was currently raving at the elderly lady next to him.
That earned me an eyeroll and a long-suffering sigh. “God Almighty, you have no idea.” She started pouring that beautiful, steaming black liquid into my empty mug. Lowering her voice, she added, “And he doesn’t tip for shit.”
I stiffened. “What? Seriously?”
She nodded as she finished topping off the cup. “Eats an entrée and an armload of appetizers, and he tips less than…” She tilted her head toward the Goth kids.
“Wait, they don’t tip either?”
“Oh, no, they do. They tip quite generously, considering they just drink coffee.” She shook her head. “But him? Ugh, I should charge him extra just for carrying on the way he does.”
Everett nudged his own cup closer to her. “Could I get another Pepsi?”
“Sure, sweetie.” She flashed him a quick smile, then picked up his cup and took it back behind the counter.
Everett faced me, and I was a little startled when he started talking, mostly because he was talking a lot louder than before. “Can you believe the CIA is profiling people based on how they tip?” He scoffed theatrically and sat back, shaking his head. “We can’t have any privacy at all these days, I swear to God.”
I studied him, but when his eyes flicked toward the counter, I understood where he was going. Louder than necessary—just loud enough to carry toward the conspiracy guy—I said, “They do not .”
“They do, too!” Everett exclaimed, and he thumped his knuckle on the table beside his plate. “I forgot to leave a tip the other day, and then my phone did an auto update that night. Now it’s full of government spyware!”
It was so damned hard not to crack up laughing, especially when he was putting on such a convincing show of righteous fury. “That’s bullshit.”
“It isn’t!” He took out his phone, tapped the screen, and thrust it in my face. “I looked online—that right there? The one that says it’s Puppy Solitaire ? I’ve never downloaded that in my life, and when I looked it up—it’s a fucking government-issued virus! All because I forgot to leave a goddamned tip at the Olive Garden.” He gave an exasperated sigh, rolled his eyes, and slammed his phone down on the table. “Fucking authoritarian 1984 bullshit right there.”
I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
Our waitress appeared beside the table again, Everett’s refreshed glass in hand. She, too, was struggling not to laugh. “Thank you, honey. And I know what you mean about the Puppy Solitaire thing. My dad got away with it for a while, but they got him last night.” She tsked and shook her head. “And once it’s there, good luck getting rid of it.” Then she winked at Everett. “Can I get you boys anything else?”
“No, I’m good.” He offered up a grin that made my innards go all gooey. “And I was going to tip even without the spyware, I promise!”
“Oh, honey.” She gave his shoulder a playful smack. “I know you do. You always do! That’s why I don’t tell the cooks to fuck with your food.”
And with that, she walked away.
How Everett was containing his laughter was beyond me, but he kept a perfectly innocent look on his face.
“Oh, come on,” he demanded in a whisper. “Tell me! Is he listening?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Well, he stopped ranting, didn’t he?”
I listened, and sure enough, the air was no longer being peppered with a soliloquy about the Vatican being behind that one carcinogenic food dye. In fact, the place was almost quiet apart from someone in the kitchen shouting at someone else in very profane Spanish.
“Holy shit.” I stared at him. “I think it worked.”
“Of course it worked.” He picked up his soda and took a deep swallow. “The easiest way to manipulate a conspiracy theorist is with another conspiracy they’ve never heard of but can’t disprove.”
I blinked. More and more, I was coming to realize he was a lot smarter than he seemed. He could be a little oblivious to some things, but then he’d turn around and have startlingly solid insight. I wondered how many people in his life underestimated him, getting careless because they thought he was stupid.
Dumb like a fox, my grandfather would say.
He’d taught me to always assume people were smarter—and potentially more dangerous—than they let on. Four years of trusting carnivorous fish enough to stick my arm in their tank had driven that home. You don’t maintain an aquarium full of piranhas without always assuming even the most placid creatures could bite without warning.
Not that Steve counted as “placid,” and not that I thought there was anything dangerous or even aggressive about Everett, but he was definitely smarter than he let on. Everett, not Steve.
“Okay, so…” Everett chewed his lip. “We can talk to the girl, right? But what if she tells us something useful, but then she won’t talk to the cops?”
It took me a second to follow him back onto the rails of our previous conversation, but I caught up. “Well, whatever she tells us, it’s your word, my word, and”—I held up my phone—“her own recorded words against hers.”
His eyes widened. “We can record the conversation? Like, without telling her? Or getting a warrant? How does all that work?”
“This isn’t a two-party consent state.” I shrugged again. “As long as we meet her in public somewhere, yeah—we can record.”
“Oh. We should probably meet her in public anyway. Even if she had nothing to do with Rick’s death, she might be spooked enough that she won’t want to meet with a couple of guys in private.”
It was my turn for a surprised, “Oh.” Yeah, he was smarter than I’d thought. And he also had a Golden Retriever vibe that put people at ease, from our done-with-humanity waitress to my prickly ass.
Which meant he was the perfect candidate to talk to Rosie.
Assuming we could get her to talk to us.
“Let’s reach out to her,” I said. “Because right now, she’s the only lead we’ve got.”
Apparently I was getting used to Waffles? after two visits, because walking in a third time didn’t even feel weird. I’d settled into it enough that the strangeness felt more like quirkiness, and I was almost at ease, especially since nothing appeared to be on fire and no one was animatedly angry. Yet.
Shit, was I getting used to this bizarre place? Was Waffles? becoming… normal?
Well, everything about this situation was weird, so why the hell not?
To add to the strangeness, we were here to meet one Rosie Daniels, who had been understandably uneasy about meeting with us.
“The cops figured Rick killed himself,” she’d said to Everett when we’d gone by her workplace earlier. “I thought they weren’t looking into it any further.”
“They’re not,” he’d told her with complete honesty. “But we both think something is weird about what happened to him, and maybe if you help us, we can get the cops interested.”
She’d balked, tensing like a startled deer who was ready to bolt.
“We want to find out the truth about what happened,” I’d jumped in, keeping my voice as gentle as I could. “The cops might’ve overlooked something, but maybe we can get their attention.”
Her eyes had flicked back and forth between us. “And what if you can’t get their attention? What if there’s something messed up about it, but the cops aren’t interested?”
The way she worded those questions had made me think she wasn’t behind his death, but she knew something about it. And like us, she didn’t think Rick had ended his own life.
Of course her boss had picked just that moment to snap at her to get back to work. With some careful coaxing, we’d persuaded her to meet us here after her shift.
Now we were seated at a booth, waiting for her to show up.
Sitting beside me, gaze fixed on the diner’s entrance, Everett whispered, “Do you think she’ll come?”
“I hope so.”
He turned to me, eyebrows up. “You don’t think she will?”
“I don’t know.” I thumbed the edges of the laminated menu I’d been ignoring. “She was tough to read.”
Everett nodded. “I can’t decide if she wants us to look into this, or if she’s afraid we will.”
Chewing my lip, I nodded too. “Same.” Agreeing to meet us could very well have been a way to get rid of us so she didn’t get fired. It was entirely possible she was going to?—
“Oh! There she is!” Everett gestured at the window. Outside, Rosie was on her way in, gaze down and a baby on her hip.
My heart sped up.
Please, please don’t let this be a dead end.
The hostess showed Rosie to the table and helped her get the baby situated in a high chair while I put my phone—which was recording—facedown beside my glass.
I was always a little awkward with kids, especially when they were that little, but Everett was immediately enraptured with Rosie’s baby. He was sitting closer, and he made faces and silly voices that had the baby giggling. Even if kids weren’t really my cup of tea, I couldn’t lie—the way Everett entertained this one was adorable.
“Sorry I was running a little late.” Rosie met my gaze across the table. “I had to pick up Sara from my mom’s house.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “We really appreciate you meeting us at all.”
She swallowed, glancing back and forth between us. “I… wasn’t sure if I should. I guess…” She sat up a little, pushed her shoulders back, and narrowed her eyes. “What exactly do you think happened to Ricky?”
“We don’t think he killed himself.” Everett glanced at her—he was letting the baby play with his car keys now, and he mostly kept his attention on her. “The scene just didn’t add up, you know?”
Rosie fidgeted. “How would you even know? Are you guys reporters or something?”
We both shook our heads.
“I do crime scene cleanup.” I gestured at Everett. “He’s a body removal specialist.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Then her eyes flicked to his hand, which the baby was grasping while she tugged at the keys with her other.
“I washed my hands, don’t worry,” Everett proclaimed.
“Oh. Um.” She shifted again. “Okay. So… I guess, um… What do you want to know?”
“For one thing,” I said, “did Rick own a pair of Air Force 1s?”
“Air Force—?” She studied me. “You mean the shoes?” When I nodded, she guffawed. “Oh, God, no.” Shaking her head vigorously, she gave a little halfhearted laugh. “He had a friend who wears them, but Ricky thought they were the biggest waste of money ever. Like, I literally had to drag him out last year to replace his sneakers because I’m pretty sure the laces were the only thing keeping them together.”
“A friend had them?” Everett asked. “Which friend?”
“I…” She blinked as if caught off guard by the question. “Uh. Leon Taylor. They worked together.”
“What did they do?”
“Construction. They’re both on parole, so that was about the only job they could get.”
I thumbed the edge of my menu again. “They work construction, and he could afford Air Force 1s?”
Rosie’s cheeks colored as she dropped her gaze to her own menu. “He, um… Leon wasn’t only doing construction.” We both watched her silently. She looked at us through her lashes, then sighed and dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Leon was… selling.. You know…” She gestured like she was smoking a joint, then tapped the inside of her elbow.
Ah. Got it.
But from the puzzled look beside me, Everett hadn’t caught on.
I leaned in and whispered, “Weed and heroin.”
“Oh. Right.” He nodded sharply. “Was, um… Was Rick involved in any of that?”
Rosie shook her head emphatically. “No, not at all. He got into meth a little when he was a teenager, but he got clean when he went to prison. Then his brother died from it, so he didn’t want anything to do with any of it.” She gave a sad little laugh. “He wouldn’t even drink.”
Everett and I exchanged looks, and I could see my own thoughts in his wide eyes.
So was the paraphernalia at the scene planted? Or was he lying to his girlfriend?
In fact…
I studied Rosie. “You two—were you, um… He had photos up of you and the baby, so I…” My face heated. God, I was so awkward with shit like this.
She smiled sadly and folded her hands on the menu. “We were… working on it.”
“What do you mean?” Everett’s voice was soft. “Like… getting back together?”
“Yeah. It was tough when Sara was born, you know? Our families were upset that we’d had a baby out of wedlock, and it was so expensive to take care of her since my dad refused to help while we were together, and it was…” Sighing, she deflated. “We broke up when Sara was three months old, but after a while, we both realized we’d just kind of buckled under the pressure. So about two months ago, we started dating again. Just kind of quietly, taking it a day at a time. But we were getting there, you know?”
I was nodding as she spoke. “Your families didn’t like that?”
“Oh my God, no.” She laughed humorlessly. “His family just… I don’t know. They hated me. My family?” She grimaced. “My dad was so mad when he found out Ricky and I were having a baby. So. Mad.”
“Because you’re not married or something?” Everett asked. “Or because of him?”
“Because of him. My dad offered to buy me a house if I’d go someplace else, have the baby, and give it up for adoption.”
“Holy shit,” Everett exclaimed. “What a dick!”
I almost facepalmed—it was such an Everett comment, but like, dude. Time and place?
To my surprise, though, Rosie said, “Right?” She rolled her eyes and groaned. “That’s how bad they hated Ricky. So when they found out we were getting back together, my dad hit the roof.”
My spine prickled. “How, um… How mad exactly was he about it?”
“Oh he was super pissed. Like, he was ready to—” Her teeth snapped shut. “Wait, no. No, no, no. I know what you’re thinking.” She put up her hands. “He didn’t kill Ricky. I know he wanted to throttle him and he wouldn’t have cried if Ricky got hit by a bus, but he would never.”
“It’s…” Everett hesitated. “I mean, Rick wouldn’t have killed himself either, right? But that’s what it looks like to the cops.”
She huffed with annoyance. “Probably because they all hated him too. But that doesn’t mean they killed him either.”
“Wait,” I said. “The cops hated him? Why?”
“Because my dad does.” She shrugged. “When your boss hates his daughter’s boyfriend, so do you.”
“Their… boss?”
“Yeah.” She stared at us like we were complete dumbasses. “My dad is Bill Daniels.”
My breath hitched. I wasn’t sure if the sound I heard was Everett’s balls jumping up into his body, or if those were mine. Both, maybe?
“Your dad…” I sputtered. “Your dad is Bill Daniels. As in, Bill Daniels, the Chief of Police.”
She nodded. “Well, yeah. You didn’t know that?”
“Uh, no,” Everett said. “The only thing we knew about you was the connection to Rick.”
“Oh.” She tapped her nails on the table. “Yeah, that’s my dad. Which—I mean, he’s a cop . He wouldn’t kill anyone. He doesn’t even speed!”
I bit back a retort that most of the cops in this town were speed demons. There was even a discreet little sticker they all had on the backs of their personal vehicles. One that meant “I’m a cop, don’t fucking pull me over.” I knew this because everyone in my family had one.
But maybe Bill Daniels really was one of the few who took his law enforcement role seriously, and he didn’t speed. Doubtful, but not the point of this conversation, so I didn’t argue with her.
I folded my arms on the edge of the table. “But your dad did hate Rick. Enough that all the other cops hated him too.” I turned to Everett. “Maybe a cop trying to impress the chief?”
“Maybe?” He shrugged. “I think we should talk to his friend, though. Leon.”
Rosie bristled. “You don’t think—Leon’s not that kind of guy. Not at all!” She glanced back and forth between us. “But you think he might’ve…”
“We don’t know,” I said. “For all we know, Rick really did kill himself.”
“You don’t think he did, though.”
“No. I don’t. So right now, anything is possible.”
She nodded, though she was visibly uncomfortable.
“Do you know how we can reach Leon?” I asked, trying to keep my tone gentle. “Because I think it would be helpful to talk to him.”
She hesitated, but then took her phone out of her purse. As she scrolled her contacts, she said, “I don’t think Ricky killed himself. I have no idea who would’ve killed him or why, but suicide?” She shook her head emphatically. “People who do that usually show at least some signs, you know? Like depression, or not being themselves, or… something?”
“Usually,” I said. “There was nothing with him? No sign? Giving away personal belongings? Suddenly going from depressed to really upbeat and happy? Nothing like that?”
“No, not at all.” She put her phone on the table and slid it across to me with Leon’s contact showing. I pushed it toward Everett, who entered it into his own phone.
While he did that, I said to Rosie, “You mentioned he was on parole, right?”
“Mmhmm. Both of them. They were… They’ll be the first to tell you they were shitheads when they were teenagers. But they both got their GEDs while they were in prison, and they’ve been working hard to live right ever since.”
“Aside from dealing drugs?” Everett asked casually as he handed back her phone.
“Well, Leon, yeah.” Rosie pushed her phone into her purse. “Honestly, he’s not a bad guy either. But he’s had a hard time making ends meet since he’s been out. He’s got a baby on the way, too, plus he already has a daughter from when he was a teenager. He’s not a hardened criminal or anything—he’s just got bills to pay and has a hard time getting hired with a felony on his record.”
“I understand that,” I said. “Okay, we’ll talk to him.” I turned to Everett. “Maybe he can help us make sense of things.”